You Son of a Niche!  Did I have your attention? Headlines draw attention and so does a lazer focus. What is your message? There are too many websites and blogs with ADHD, bombarding the search engines, overwhelming people with too much information. Does your message draw attention and engage people? Do they want to come back for more?  In this article, I’ll share a few tips on how to have fun and make an impression on your customers and prospects.  If they don’t notice you, you don’t exist.

Slice that Head Cheese, Real Thin! When I was in college in the 80s, I worked in a delicatessen situated in a large, popular urban grocery store in South Seattle. The rare connoisseur of Hog-Head cheese always asked us to slice it real thin. It was a difficult, often disgusting task as we envisioned carving into Abi Normal’s, formaldehyde soaked brains, displayed in a glass jar in Mel Brook’s movie classic, Young Frankenstein.

Do you know what hog-head cheese is? It’s a inventive mixture of assorted hog parts; feet, tails, ears, snouts, and organs, lovingly combined into a savory loaf of jellied disgust. I ate a lot of gourmet cheeses and meats but was never compelled to sample hog-head cheese. The bakery produced their own signature health bars, a conglomeration of left over bread heals, cookie crumbs, old dry fruit, and assorted staples. One bar required a thirsty-two ouncer to wash it down.  Needless to say, these artful, culinary delights were not very popular.

Have you ever endured a slice of holiday fruit cake? It’s essentially the same thing. Now that I have utterly offended the head cheese and fruit cake enthusiasts, please indulge me for a moment.  Allow me to use my colorful stories from the past to illustrate an important point. When you are marketing, avoid mixing all your key products and ingredients together.

Don’t send mixed messages, keep your message simple and focused, and be attractive to your customer. Target a specific niche or group of consumers that are interested and attracted to your product or business benefits. Rarely is more better, since most people are too busy to care. Be specific, get to the point.

A Hot Case for Attracting Customers: In the Deli, my friend and co-worker, Rick, taught me some valuable marketing insights.  I recall vividly, Rick striding briskly through aisle twelve, a beeline from the meat department to the deli, grasping six, dead raw poultries in each hand, proclaiming like John the Baptist,  ”Its dinner time, come and get it, we got chickens – fresh, whole roasted chickens, in the deli!”      Rick’s hot case display glistened with heaping piles of savory whole roasted chickens, pork ribs, fried chicken, assorted fried veggies and chicken organs. The display was fresh, juicy, colorful, and aromatic — not a half empty, dried-up, burned-out, hideous display of stinking, dead carcasses and rotting vegetables. We attracted hungry, irritable, post meridiem commuters with an irresistible dinner display and tons of free samples to keep the tired, starving lot from smashing the hot case in desperation.

Rick’s hyperbolic trek from the meat department of Tom, Dick, and Harry, combined with our preparation and display of an irresistible Hot Case during dinner rush hour, attracted hungry crowds and created plenty of deli profits. No kidding, the cutters were: Tom, Dick, and Harry — their white, blood stained aprons hung sordidly under their names, side by side in the slaughter room.     Rick’s Display Case was Hot, and worth remembering.  And maybe for a moment, during the dinner rush, our customers had a chance to release some endorphins after a stressful day at work. In your business, keep your display case full. In the grocery business, they call it “facing  the shelves.” Look inviting and attractive to your customer or prospect.  Empty shelves and empty hot cases are not attractive. They may loose their appetite and look elsewhere.

For us, humor proved to be a useful utensil and frankly, a means to break up the monotony.  Our exaggerated hot and cold case exhibits, and slinging food around our deli cubical like high-school dodge ball players, birthed a kind of cult following. Creating a fun atmosphere and memorable experience is what the fish throwers down at world famous, Pike Place Market do. People come from around the world to see the young Princes of the Sea sling King Salmon — an experience worth remarking about.

Humor, Worth Remembering: Most of us welcome a laugh in order to deal with the dire straits promoted by media spin hipsters.  Humor creates a connection and becomes a useful tool in the context of marketing.  If you can effectively link humor and honest hyperboles to your product or service, your impact could draw customers and prospects in Super Bowl proportions. By the way, what do Lizards and Cavemen have to do with car insurance?

Some say, I’m “full of it.”  That’s true, full of ideas and the passion to help you realize that it’s ok to follow your dreams and do what you love.  Smart, successful people never stop learning, applying what they learn, and teaching others.  Knowledge is not power — knowing how to apply knowledge is omnipotent.  I hope, I sparked an idea!  If I did, could you share the energy with someone you know?  Thanks! Markm Sparkm